Yes, hearts and stars, it was five years ago I began my blogging career . Truly, besides birthing children, it is the second largest miracle in my life. That I gave my love of writing the respect that it was due and entered into a contract with myself to get better by blogging regularly, that was huge. This, the bottom line, the why of my blog, was solid.

But the how of my blogging would be the journey worth traveling. I almost stopped, as many bloggers do, after 6 months, but then bettering my writing was my goal, my give a shoot, so I focused solely on that. I had no idea what I was doing otherwise.

Dealing with the technology threatened to undo me several times too. I nearly lost my mind to the fear and anxiety with just installing the mechanics and the upkeep of the blog. But I kept on keeping on. And because I knew it was what you were supposed to do, I joined Facebook and Instagram and to my amazement, discovered that there were wonderful like-minded people all over the world.

However, the biggest discoveries were the ones I found had happened inside of me. I gained a truer understanding of who I was, what was important for me to be, and that I could count on myself. I separated the real me from the one I imagined I should be but wasn’t. And the person I am today is completely due to to his blogging journey I’m on. I have been able to peel back such layers of me and show the world that it’s possible to be authentic without too much reprisal. Yes there are trolls out here but they only make you stronger.

So I’m in for the long haul for this blog. I intend for there to be some changes to it for the better sooner than later. But my voice and my clear intention to be me and continue to grow and learn unapologetically will remain. I love each and every one of you my devoted readers so much because you know I mean it when I say I do this for both of us.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

I feel bad about the way I’ve treated you. You are such a good friend but I have a guilty secret. Sometimes I put you up on a pedestal and then use your accomplishments to feel bad about myself. I want to celebrate with you and feel like your equal, but I just end up feeling inferior. And I feel that I’ve put a great big blockage into our relationship.

Remember when you announced that amazing break you had last year? I know you worked hard to get it and I was immediately conflicted between wanting to celebrate with you and wanting to be soooo jealous of you. I hope you didn’t notice I made it all about me. I’d be mortified if you noticed. So I just keep my jealousy to myself and live my own life of desperation and futility.

I work so hard to come up with brave tasks to tackle. I challenge my fears at every corner doing the things I dread most in order to improve myself. But then another post comes up that tells me you had something else great happen to your career or your house or your family. And then I spiral. I compare your outsides to my insides and always come up with the crappier end of the equation.

I’m not the only one I know who does this. You might do it too. And that’s maybe why I bring this up. Because if you knew I was doing it and I knew we were doing it together then maybe we’d have a better time of feeling good about being right where we are. Accomplishments and failures alike, we are just all coexisting and hoping for happiness.

So I promise the next time I want to take your success and add it to my failure column, I’ll stop. And I’ll try to remember that there were probably many items and things in your life that didn’t go so well too. That you didn’t share those but if we talked, you might. So for now, I’m going to value my life on my own merits and not on the demerits I got from your good fortune.

If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit. If you Sign up for my newsletter in the sign up box over there to the right, you’ll receive a first look-see at my Creative Mothers’ Manifesto! Heartfelt impassioned words on the need for expressing creativity for your soul and being a better mother for it.

I can not remember ever not being whacked out about my life, my month, my week, or my day. I have lived in perpetual chaos, stressed out about whatever events are coming up or jobs or deadlines or responsibilities I had. And it always felt like each outcome would decide whether I was a legitimate person or just a poser in my life.

I’d have days of feeling the anticipation of an upcoming deadline and my stomach would hurt, I’d chew the inside of my cheek to shreds, and generally feel like crap mentally. As in “feeling like I was free-falling through holes in my soul” scared. No solid ground to stand on and “why is it I never asked for anti-anxiety medicine” anxious.

And then I walked through a door. I was working hard on my value and my self-esteem work and I realized that I was building all these anxieties on false thoughts about the outcomes I presumed would happen as a result of these situations. I predicted things going badly and then I was done. Except nothing had even happened yet. I discovered I Was not What I Feel.

So I began to call myself on the lies I’d been telling myself all of my life. I began to collect the clues that I had worth and value in the world. And gradually the equation of my worth came to the surface and battled those falsehoods. Thankfully my good side won and my anxieties have decreased immensely.

I stopped creating the whirlwind of crazy to perpetuate the scared feelings I was used to feeling. And I dared to feel calm, perhaps even happy. I won one battle after the other to win back my psyche and I’m glad to say I have rewritten how my brain processes my day-to-day. It took work and insight and effort. And it was worth every little bit of that work. I feel like a real girl now. Ready to look forward and battle the real dragons in my life and not the self-created false ones.

If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

Official know-it-alls everywhere know that to be a an expert you have to be an authority. No one’s going to give you credit for your knowledge unless you can prove that you have more to say and can say it better than other people. And then you get promoted to expert, authority, and official know-it-all.

As for me and my expertise, this would all make sense if I were talking about bowling or raising beavers. But what about just being an expert on life ? Does life experience and hard knocks give you credibility? I’d have to vote yes or my blog has had no meaning. Surely the people who dig the experiences and lessons that women like Brene Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert are offering in their novels, courses, and social media would agree as well.

In fact it’s rather astounding what credibility truth can hold when you truly hear it. Both from others and yourself. This month I’m about to embark on an e-course that will help me find my innermost truths and what my book Manifesto will be. I should add that I had one flash of genius on this potential book like eight years ago and then gave up on it completely. So for me to even be contemplating it again is HUGE.

But again, what gives me the authority to write anything ever? It is the experiences that we live that shape who we become. We know how that happened, we embody the living of those lessons and the knocks that we got to get here. So who better to tell those stories than us. And if they’re profound and funny, Great! And if they’re not, they’re still my stories and I’m the authority on genuineness of their intentions and details.

So I am putting it out there that I am an authority on my life. And that is enough. Proof on how good a story that is will be in the writing, what has come before and what will follow.

If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

What does it mean to be me? If I’m not happy with this version then what would an ideal version of me look like? Who do I think I should be? Will it always be someone different from who I am now? And if so, if my results don’t match my expectations, will I be doomed to a life of not enough?

Yes.

I am catching myself recently contemplating the quality of this or that in my life, noticing the feelings surrounding certain choices and suddenly I realize, this is an expectations issue. And one of my words of the year, Perspective, is dealt into my hand asking to be changed. How I perceive this situation, based on my expectations, will shade how I feel about it and then I will judge it as good or bad. Expectations + Perceptions + Good or Bad Feelings.

If I’m always comparing my life to that of someone far more “graced” than me, I will always be unhappy. I’ll never be as rich, as talented, or as skinny. My expectations are then a cyclic prison of misery. And I want out.

If I adjust my perspective and decide I’m good where I am, and if I make sure I have a plan on where I’d like to go, I will then feel hopeful about my now. Your journey is then fueled by your faith in your ability to get there. Self-efficacy , the ability to believe if you’ve done it before, you’ll be able to do it again, is based on this faith. If you suspend your disbelief long enough to prove that you can budge from the stuck place you’ve been in, and if you keep your head down and keep going, the faith in yourself fuel tank will fill even more. You’ll actually get there quicker than you imagined.

I have spent a lot time filling myself up with positive knowledge about me. I come out of my cave and I speak to people and they thank me for being me. I show up and volunteer and people show up for me. And the community I’m creating all around is building me up. And I feel much more competent to do whatever I put my mind to than I ever did before. It’s been a slow process and yet, I’ve budged. So being me is becoming a better and better person to be. I expect I’ll be my friend by the end.

If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a toddler, a tween, and my five year-old blog and I turned 50 this year. My hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.

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